Customer Reviews

1001 Muffins, Biscuits, Doughnuts, Pancakes, Waffles, Popovers, Fritters, Scones and Other Quick Breads

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have many cookbooks, but this is by far the most well done cookbook I've seen in years (no pun intended.) This large book contains recipes and a substitution chart--not detailed chapters on how to bake quick breads, etc.

Over 494 color pages of recipes for quick breads grace this book. There are a staggering 273 pages for muffin recipes alone; two recipes per page. The remainder of the book contains various recipes for biscuits, doughnuts, pancakes, waffles, popovers, fritters, scones, and other quick breads.

Each recipe is accompanied by a full color picture of the final product and well-written steps. Also included in this book are recipes for sauces and spreads to accompany the muffins. It's almost worth buying the book just for these additional recipes.

There arn't any funky ingredients. Most are common ingredients normally found in a well-stocked kitchen.

Buy one of these books for a baker friend, she/he will appreciate the gift and never need another quick bread recipe book again.

Awesome book! :)

It is handy to have such a tremendous number of quick breads in one book; this one has more recipes for quick breads than all my other cookbooks put together. Just flip to the chapter you want and leaf through all the recipes until you find one that suits you. Unfortunately, I am not confident enough in the reliability of the recipes as a whole to recommend it. Interesting, but best avoided.

The author claims to have tested each recipe, but I doubt the veracity of this statement. It almost seems as if this book did not have an editor at the publisher. This is definitely a case where quantity trumps quality (I would be happier with fewer but higher quality recipes, but then you probably would not have a 1001 of them, either).

In the muffin section:
1) it is humorous to see basically the same recipe 500 times
2) the batter measurement and/or yield information is often wrong
3) each recipe has a picture, but many pictures are either wrong or next to the wrong recipe
4) textures ranged from pasty to dry to undercooked
5) few recipes worked correctly
6) sub-division of this long section would have been helpful: sweet vs. savory, flour vs. whole grain vs. biscuit mix, mix and dump vs. whipped egg whites, etc.
7) author uses 4 different muffin pan sizes, seemingly at random (the sizes are: 2.0, 2.25, 2.75, and 3.0 inches diameter).
8) many recipes are wrong: missing ingredients, missing recipe steps, incorrect ingredients.
9) the yields go all over the place, ranging from 3 muffins to 4 dozen; would it have been that much trouble to standardize all the recipes to yield 6 or 12 muffins using one size muffin tin?
10) the recipe names are not consistent: some muffins that use cocoa powder are called "chocolate muffins", while others are called "cocoa muffins".
11) the amount of baking powder seems to be excessive in many recipes.
12) some of the ingredients make no sense: "lecithin granules" (fyi: 1 teaspoon of lecithing is enough for 20 -40 pounds of product)? 2 T of "dried grated orange zest" for only a dozen muffins (perhaps the author is thinking of candied orange peels)?
13) muffins with egg and fat only, no liquid
14) a majority of the recipes have one or more whole grain ingredients, so if you want a muffin with just plain, old flour, your choices are limited (many of the recipes seem to be cribbed from cookbooks from the "health concious" 70's and early 80's).

I have similar complaints about the inconsistency and sloppiness of the other chapters in the book (here, I am referring to the editing and recipe quality, not the mess it makes in your kitchen). Consider, for example, mixing methods. The one used for muffins is perfect, the one for biscuits is wrong, and the one for coffee cakes is hopelessly confused. Page 295 has the ingredient "Whipped Cream Topping (see recipe page XXX)"; good luck trying to find it, because it is not listed in the index and I am not flipping through 480 pages of recipes to find it. Contrary to what the author states on page 307, the origin of what we know today as "quick bread" is English high tea, not holiday celebrations. Many of the quick bread recipes did not have enough liquid; they make adequate substitutes for gypsum board, but were not suitable for human consumption (I would love to make a joke about even the dog not wanting to eat them, but I do not have a dog). It is also the only cookbook I know of that calls for distilled spirits in generous quantities as a baking ingredient, from 1/2 to 1 cup of rum, brandy, kirsch, creme de cacao, etc. The quick breads come out of the oven looking and tasting like masonery bricks. Most of the scones I tried looked and tasted like hockey pucks.

It has chapters on muffins (236 pages), biscuits (18 pages), cobblers (6 pages), doughnuts (10pages), quick breads (118 pages), pancakes (10 pages), popovers (6 pages), scones (28 pages), and waffles (12 pages).

In general:
1) in each chapter, the recipes are arranged alphabetically by title
2) index is correlated by ingredient only
3) a master list of all recipes would have been helpful
4) index needs to be cross-referenced by recipe title, not just ingredients
5) does not specify how flour is measured (scoop and sweep, spoon and sweep, etc.)

As I write this, a batch of Orange Marmalade Muffins (page 213), are finishing in my oven. I have searched for a very long time for a comprehensive collection of muffin recipes. This collection is a real treat. With recipes ranging from 100 Year Old Muffins to Zucchini-And-Sweet-Rye Muffins with Olives, there truly are recipes in the book for everyone.

One of the many features of this book that is delightful, is the addition of sauces, spreads and toppings to enhance many of the final products. For instance, the Chicken-Rice Muffins with Vegtables (page 91), offers an easy Cucmber Dill Sauce recipe to enhance the flavors of these unusual taste treats.

Along with the easy to make muffin recipes are recipes for scones, cobblers (just like Grandma's), biscuits (try the Patriotic Biscuits with cranberries and blueberries - page 268), waffles, coffes cakes, doughnuts, fritters, traditional quick breads, pancakes and popovers. Quite a piece of work, this!

Each recipe has a color photograph of the finished product to assist you in the very difficult task of actually making a choice of which recipe to bake. Each page contains only two recipes that are easily read, due mainly to the no-nonsense instructional style of the recipes. Anyone can do these recipes.

By the way, the Orange Marmalade muffins have finished and are now cooling on racks - they look and taste fantastic!

Thank you Mr. Gillespie and Ms. Young for this baking treasure.

Although there are a lot of recipes in this book, they all taste very similar and none are really great. Also, the editor did a terrible job in that there are ambiguities between the ingredients list and the instructions. I would NOT recomend this book to anyone who appreciates a truly great muffin.

I bought this book becaouse I love to bake muffins. There are some interesting combinations and recipes, but after a while they get somewhat repetitious.

There are also a number of typos or omissions in ingredients in a number of the recipes --- the narrative will say 'add the xxx' and xxx is not shown in the ingredient list, or vice-versa.

This becomes very frustrating. I would not buy another of his 1001 books

This is the most wonderful cookbook I have come across in years. Not only does it have full-colour pictures, but each delightful creation is right next to the recipe! One minor complaint is that there is no real consideration to lower-fat muffins. Substitutions can be made, if you know how to go about it. Still... It's fantastic. I wish all cookbooks were laid out this way.

As the creator and managing editor of the popular online family magazine Families-First, I had the opportunity to interview Gregg Gillespie and to read his book. His book 1001 Muffins etc is an amazing collection of delicious and simple recipes. It is a beautiful book, full of gorgeous photos, and tips on how to make your baking the best it can be. Families-First hosts a weekly event called Recipe of the Week and we always receive many happy letters when we feature one of Gregg's muffins, pancakes, bread or popovers recipes. I have made a number of Gregg's recipes and my family loved them. In fact, they shout, keep going you only have 995 recipes to go! I reccommned this book for every kitchen, this one book will give you all you could ever need- it's a treasure chest of yummy goodies!

There are certainly a lot of recipes here, but there is also a fair amount of repitition. It's an attractive book, and in that regard a beginning home baker might find it inspiring, if only as a means to see the many possibilities beyond the old "plain or blueberry" conumdrum. We tried a few, and found none of the choices particularly marvelous (but hey, maybe it was the baker, not the recipe....nah!). It's a good place to start, that's the best I can say for it. Perhaps the author would have been better served trying not to come up with 1,001 recipes. That's a lot of muffins, and a lot of potential selections. It's almost overwhelming. There may be some really wonderful recipes in here, but I may never discover them in a life that allows time for home baking once in a good week.

I threw away all my other muffin books. A fun and tasty addition to any kitchen. Recipes are easy and you will never run out of things to make.

An attractive & well-organized book. I found good recipes here, but also a few duds, probably the result of type errors. For instance, the Plain Muffins on pg. 219 call for 3 cups flour, which results in a stiff dough. I think this was meant to be 2 cups, like the other recipes in the book. The Bisquick Cobbler on pg 274 is much too wet, and though it was tasty enough, it needs more than one cup of Bisquick to change it from a pudding into a cobbler.

What I did like: Oatmeal Muffins on pg. 209; Yankee Maple Muffins on pg. 252; Banana Tea Muffins on pg. 53.

The photos spur one to bake, though I don't think I'll ever make the Sauerkraut-and-Pickle muffins.